Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1943. A LEAD WORTH FOLLOWING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1943. A LEAD WORTH FOLLOWING.

AN invitation to those interested in the formation of a Chamber of Commerce to attend a meeting to be held in the Masterton Y.M.C.A. rooms tomorrow evening deserves the serious attention of all who have the advancement and welfare of the district and its people at heart. The convenor, Mr J. 11. Cunningham, specially asks business men to attend, “as the need/is. urgent, for a united body to study and advise upon matters' of vital importance to the district.” . . As its name implies, a Chamber of Commerce is pnman y an association of business people, but the former Masterton Chamber of Commerce, in the course of an extended and useful career, did not confine itself by any means solely to commercial affairs, but interested itself in a helpful way in various community questions of broader scope. Naturally, too, the formei Chamber gave attention frequently to matters of Moment to primary producers, who were represented on its committee, as well as to affairs of urban trade and industry. In the period on which we arc now entering it will no doubt be open to a Chamber of Commerce, adequately supported by a large and active membership, to become a valuable focal point and rallying centre for much community action of a constructive kind. That action on these lines is desirable and is necessary if Masterton and its district are even to keep abreast of the times is not open to question. In this country and in a good many others, the years that lie almost immediately ahead evidently are destined to witness a great deal of development and expansion, much of it probably transcending past experience. The hope is raised, not of a hectic post-war boom that is the. last thing to be desired —but of a confining expansion of national and 'community life. In that expansion, it may be hoped material progress will to an increasing extent be directed from a standpoint of sound morality and broadly enlightened regard tor the welfare of the whole community, and particularly of the oncoming generation. With prospects and problems of this kind arising, it becomes, for a town and district like our own, a matter of deciding whether we are consciously and actively to organise as a community or are to prefer a policy of drift and a life more or less of the Sleepy Hollow order. Those who believe that our community life should be developed and enlarged may find .one practical and effective means of translating their belief into action by giving their support to the proposed Chamber of Commerce.

It is open to this district and others like it throughout the Dominion to make an invaluable contribution to the renovation and invigoration of national life. In these lightly populated areas there is ample scope for providing a happy alternative to the increasingly deplorable conditions of life and work that are developing in our metropolitan areas. Much of the so-called organisation of trade and industry in our larger centres of population is nothing else than a stupid and entirely needless jumble, in which human'welfare is disregarded. In the decentralisation of industry, nearly everyone who has given the subject any thought is now agreed, is to be found the key to a better and healthier community life. It is by an actual occupation of our country, by distributing useful and productive activity of every kind as widely as possible, instead of crowding much of this activity into a few cramped and congested areas, that we may approach most hopefully an improvement in standards of family life and anticipate a solution of the problem of securing an adequate natural increase of population. The establishment of an active and enterprising Chamber of Commerce would be an undoubtedly valuable contribution to district development and progress. The initial question to be determined is whether the right degree of public interest and support can be awakened. The former Chamber of Commerce died for want of interest and support, but the people of this town and district will be strangely ill-advised if they allow that state of affairs to continue. •